#238 – Dancing Mania

Throughout the Middle Ages, Catholics saw friends and neighbors afflicted with what they believed was the irresistible desire to dance. The cure for this strange ailment, they believed, was to be found in the intercession of the saints…and more dancing.

“Rethinking the Dancing Mania” by Robert E. Bartholomew in Skeptical Inquirer Volume 24.4, July / August 2000 – the author explains the dancing mania as an expression of prohibited heretical/pagan beliefs